In essence, Zivity is a social-networking site for user who want to share high-end nude modeling photos.
But to date, the site has only featured nude women. That changed this week when the site's current managers called on their users to nominate men to appear nude or topless on the site.
"Over the past year we’ve had hundreds of requests for guys on Zivity from the women who want to see them," Zivity's Cyan Banister said. "We were listening (each and every time) and we want to give the whole Zivity Dude thing a try at least once and if it is well received, we’ll either do this every month and celebrate one lucky guy in a big way or we’ll open up a gallery for men."
Founded in 2007, Zivity managed to draw about $8 million in support from two venture capital firms, Founders Fund and BlueRun Ventures. But in July, the site's founders redirected the majority of its assets, money and staff into another website, a mainstream celebrity fan portal called TopFans.com.
Zivity Chairman and Co-founder Scott Banister was a co-founder of IronPort Systems, an anti-spam company that was acquired earlier this year by Cisco for $830 million. Banister also helped develop the bid-for-placement model used by Google Adwords and was a co-inventor of PayPal. Zivity is privately held.